Winter on the Allotment

 

I wouldn't have been on site, except for the annual farm yard manure delivery on Saturday.  A couple of inches of snow fell during the two hours it took to offload the lorries and distribute the bags. With frozen fingers I took this snap and retreated to the warmth of home.  At least the nets have not collapsed. The temperature has since gone up and the dramatically down to -5C last night.  The prediction is for negative figures every night until Friday. 

Sweet Dumplings and Drying Beans

 With the cold wind blowing it is time to enjoy some of the summer's stored treats: Sweet Dumplings squash.  One of these is just the right size for a person...

...once stuffed and baked.

The kitchen pulley is serving its purpose as a drier of beans.  These net bags are suitably positioned so that if you don't watch out you bump into them on entering and leaving.  This, together with the occasional rummage ensures good air circulation.  As the Barlotti bean pods dry they start shedding beans - a sure sign that they are ready for podding!

Winter Calling

 

Change of month and change of season.  The beans, pumpkins and courgettes have accepted their fate and a new set of prospects for harvesting are coming into their own.  Parsnips are bulking up. Jerusalem Artichoke tops will die back and be chopped back ready for root harvesting in the early months of next year. (Note the rhubarb which has recently succumbed)

Coming into its own is the brassica patch:

An autumn novelty this year is raddichio/endive/chicory. ( I don't intend to address the naming confusion in this post.  That is enough to sap anyone's strength.). Here we have the red round sort 

Palla Rossa

And the red elongated sort

Rossa di Treviso

Suffice to say that on harvesting the first of these and grilling it and slathering it with balsamic vinegar it still tasted very bitter and went down like a lead balloon!  It breaks the first rule of vegetable gardening - to grow what you like to eat!

Thank goodness we do like artichoke, beetroot, carrots, cabbages,kale, parsnip and potatoes! 

Autumn Report

 

One week left of October. Clocks go back next week and Meteorological Winter stats. The pumpkin and squashes   have been gathered in and the Virginia Creeper  leaves having turned a deep red are now falling.

 

Time for a review of 2022.

Successes & Failures

Warm and dry was the theme all spring and summer.  Warmth is welcome in Scotland, but dry is bad news anywhere.  

The crops that suffered worst were sweetcorn and leeks. The sweetcorn I sowed too late (due to seed failure) and the leeks were sown and planted too early for the conditions this year. Another problem with the sweetcorn was cohabitation with  rampant courgettes (All Green Bush). which deprived them of light and no doubt water, despite generous applications.  How can the three sisters planting scheme (beans, sweetcorn and courgettes) work when the two sisters squabble with each other so?  On the plus side, the courgettes started strong and continued cropping at a rate of two fruit per plant per week right into October. 

Runner beans, once they got going were similarly robust croppers.  I must admit that Dwarf French Beans, which start cropping a week or two before climbing beans,  get short shrift once the runners start cropping.  This could have something to do with the condition of my back - I hate stooping and the crop is well hidden by leaves just a foot off the ground. I gave an old favourite drying bean Barlotti beans Tongues of Fire a go again this year.  They are going strong, but I won't know exactly how well they have done until I have picked and dried them in their pods. The first are drying in a string bag in the kitchen, soon to be followed by the rest now that the nights are turning cold.   

Still with beans, the beguiling offer of broad beans in autumn caught my eye in last year's seed catalogues. "Luz de Otono" translates from the Spanish  as Light of Autumn  or maybe Autumn Glow.  How could I resist?  Well it is autumn now and here's how the crop looks:

Some flowers  but not so many pollinators around.   These were sown on 5th August. "Too late" I hear you cry. Well the ones I sowed on 14th  July were an abject failure producing 5 pods  with tiny beans from the whole frazzled row! I will try to be patient with this lot in the hope they will pod up. Sadly a Spanish Autumn might be considerably warmer than a Scottish one. 

Another Mediterranean plant I have gone large on this year is Basil.  The goal was to grow enough to make our own pesto.  This is one of three trays and yes the goal was achieved, thrice over.  Outdoors over the summer the trays have been given sanctuary in the greenhouse, indoors under lights, and the kitchen windowsill (as they approach the chop) before being turfed outdoors again.   

  

Another goal was to reliably grow a chilli pepper. I think I may have found the answer with Hungarian Hot Wax . Again they have been outdoors, in the greenhouse and indoors as dictated by climatic conditions and the availability of space. I will be growing these again next year. 

I have now planted next year's garlic.  This year's crop of Elephant Garlic and Solent Wight was underwhelming but provided enough for consumption and 'seed' for this year (bolstered up with a couple of bulbs of Caulk). I grew onion and shallots (Zebrunne) from seed with poor returns.  The ones that grew were fine but we ate the crop in a week or two. I do put this down to the conditions (dry), and will give them another go before resorting to sets again.

Potatoes emerged remarkably unscathed from the drought conditions. Carrots was a game of two halves. Only half of each of the four early rows survived, but what did grow was hugely successful and should keep us going until December. I have another long net of late carrots as yet untouched. 

Parsnips were sown, but failed, sown again, producing 2 plantlets, then sown again. This time they were successful - but a bit late. I won't harvest any until the first frost. 

Spring Hero Spring cabbages were a novelty this year and I am repeating the experiment over this winter too.  Other later brassicas suffered.  The Brussel sprouts in particular went all spindly and the sprouts which are now following are very small and disappointing.  Early purple sprouuting broccoli  started sprouting really early.  Thank goodness for kale (Red Russian, Dwarf Curled and Cavelo Nero) which have all bounced back.  Cauliflowers, overwintered and new season, were uniformly unproductive.  I suspect they are boron sensitive, and the soil is lacking. This diagnosis may have been influenced by my yellow cabbages.  The joke is that I have been growing a variety notorious for being yellow:  Bloomindal Geel.  Geel is Dutch for yellow! They are also notorious for needing lots of space. On the plus side they have a great flavour.  

Traditionally Swedish Turnip or "Neeps" grow well in Scotland.  The specimens in  my row are  still very small.  Perhaps the rain will revive them.  Perhaps the weather was not very Scottish this summer, or perhaps they were hemmed in and overshadowed by other brassicas. You can take intercropping too far!

So the dry and hot summer of 2022 has produced some unexpected results and proves the old saw that if you grow a wide variety of crops, even if you have failures, something will prosper. 

Tomato Post

 Looks like it's curtains for the tomatoes, given the turn in the Scottish weather.

As in previous years Sungold cherry tomatoes were the earliest and sweetest. They have continued to produce a daily harvest since early August.

A noveltiy this year has been Costoluto di Fiorentino. Costoluto translates from the Italian as ribbed.

These have started ripening about two weeks ago.

The other novelty was Black Russia. Given the black it really is hard to know when these are ripe. Both varieties are ideal for cooking...

...or preserving if they are still green.

Not a bad year for tomatoes!

Show and Tell

 

I came across this picture while sifting through my old photographs today.  It tells a story of youth and enthusiasm - and it was taken in 1993.  That was two years after we were allocated our allotment - the first flush of enthusiasm. Since then our four children have grown up and while they still appreciate good fresh veg, the level of participation dropped off rapidly.  My wife got a job which was all consuming, so when I started my blog in 2003 it was called "Mal's Allotment".  

Showing didn't last long as I fell out with the allotment association organisers (FEDAGA ) after they proposed a voluntary hike in allotment rents from £40 to £100. (There has been regime change since, but only after the Council proposed tripling the annual rent from £100 to £300 at a stroke.) We grow for eating rather than showing anyway and with two working parents productivity and keeping ahead of the weeds took precedence over the niceties.  Now retired we could contemplate showing again, but the pandemic has put paid to that.  There has been no show  for three years now. 

The reward I get from the allotment has not diminished at all.  Every year is a new challenge.  Can the successes be repeated, can last years disasters be turned around.  The craving for novelty is stoked up in TV and radio programmes, blogs  and seed catalogues - as well as by competitive neighbours. I like to set annual goals like: Can we be self sufficient in carrots, garlic, potatoes.. etc. Can I grow a decent celeriac (No) Celery (No) Fennel (Yes) Asparagus (the jury is out).  You are pitting your wits against nature, weather as well as weeds, every year. And every year is different. So I can manage without the show.    

Tom Tom Club

 

The first tomatoes are ready for harvesting.  Hooray!

You don't grow tomatoes in Scotland because it makes economic sense, although they have a flavour that money can't buy.  Surprisingly these are outdoor tomatoes, from our sheltered back garden:

The ones in the greenhouse are refusing to ripen, probably because it is shaded by a pyrocanthus and holly hedge. (The hedge is home to an extended family of house sparrows so is accepted as a fact of life.)

I still have high hopes of a good crop before summer is out, this year of all years.

Celery - C'est la Vie

Celery Rosetta

I have been trying to grow a decent celeriac root for about a decade now, with limited success. Rather than accept defeat I have doubled my trouble. This is my second year of attempting to grow celery too!

Last year I grew Victoria, a self blanching F1 hybrid. They were rather straggly an not big enough for kitchen use.  Then I heard that Loretta is the go to celery variety for allotmenteers. (It is also self blanching)  Above is the first picked plant.  It is heading for a minestrone soup pan. Not really a challenge to the shop bought product, it is nevertheless a source of some pride. I grew it close together, next to the celeriac, giving both copious amounts of water.  The plants have turned yellow, leaves included, so clearly there is a nutritional issue still to be address.  Boron deficiency? I have ordered a tonic, and next year I will use a top dressing mix that contains boron.  Yes, there will be a next year for celery. 

 The neighbouring celeriac has been as bad as ever with 5 out of nine plants bolting.  But then again the soil amendment for the celery might work for the celeriac too....

Now how big is the celery? This gives a sense of scale. I do have very big feet BTW.

Dry Heat

Stuck indoors today because of the rain (hurray)  gives me the opportunity  to review recent progress.  The garlic crops, both winter and  spring plantings have been a bit underwhelming.  The autumn planted Elephant Garlic and home saved Early Purple Wight and Doocot I feel more forgiving toward. The spring planted Mersley Wight and  Solent Wight  got all the room and feed they required but turned yellow in early July. Digging them up they were small, showed signs of white rot and in many case developed as two stems intertwined below ground level.  While I will continue to grow my own Elephant garlic I don't think the return on the traditional sized garlic is worth it on my plot. Lesson learnt.  The picture shows the portion of the harvest that  justified storage.  Elephant garlic on the left, other autumn planted middle and spring planted on the right. The more fiddly smaller bulbs are still drying off in the greenhouse awaiting assessment for rot and suitability for cooking. 

Despite the heat and dry conditions the brassica patch seems to be full and ready for the coming (cooler) brassica season. The thin row is Swedes.  To the right are the winter harvested kales.  Now that we have had rain I am confident that they will survive to maturity.

Although a bit out of date this last picture is indicative of what is harvesting now.  Broad beans have been great and I have staggered further sowings.  Courgettes are now harvesting in torrents. Peas have been great this year, and again I have further plantings to come. Raspberries have been ripening daily. That is one days worth of ripened berries.

 So all in all I have been very happy with the produce so far this year, even though drought conditions have prevailed until yesterday.  

In a Spin

 After many years yesterday we finally got around to visiting the great Millennium project: The Falkirk Wheel.

The Union Canal passes opposite our house in Edinburgh, but this is where it ends, on the top tier of the Falkirk Wheel. This replaced a system of 11 consecutive locks by a single rotational motion.

Here it is halfway around.

Up above all is serene tranquility.

Down below is a basin connecting to the Forth and Clyde Canal where all sorts of water and other amusements (archery?)  are available. 

Despite the delay in visiting the wheel still retained its novelty value!

Summer Plot Review

 

A lovely morning of sunshine, after what seems like weeks of wind and cloud - but no rain to speak of.  So off to the plot to water.

Alliums in the foreground. The leeks onions and shallots are green, but the yellow strip is three rows of garlic.  (Digging up the first few they are rather disappointing.) The potatoes behind are looking really happy. 

And what pretty flowers on the Blue Danube!

Beside the alliums the brassica patch is looking a bit sparse, but is nearly full up now and will come into its own later when the seedlings put on some leaf.

The cucurbits are showing plenty of leaf now. Fruit will follow and an avalanche of courgettes is anticipated.

Separated by a row of broad beans that has been cropping for weeks we have celeriac, celery and runner beans. I have high hopes for all three. The runners have just reached the top of the canes and I pinched out the tops today.

One rather unsightly crop is peas  (alongside a second,later, row of broad beans). The pigeons discovered the peas, but not before they had podded. While they decimated the leaves and stems the pods were not to their taste, so we humans got them!  Next year either taller pea sticks or netting will be deployed.

Last word goes to the carrots. Not pretty due to the protective net, but they deliver for months provided you keep the net on and the root fly out.

So, all in all, I am pretty happy with progress on the vegetable plot so far this year.

First Orchid of the Year

 

First one

Then another

And then a whole host

The marsh orchids have arrived in the Pentland Hills. I love these plants, but not in an Agatha Christie way.  Most likely these are Heath Spotted Orchids Dactylorhiza maculats although they may be Broad-leaved Marsh-orchid Dactylorhiza majalis or a mixture.  I don't feel the need to rush to  nail the naming. Just now I am enjoying their reappearance  (The land where they grow was severely churned up by heavy machinery.  Just possibly this activity was a conservation measure carried out with approval from the relevant conservation body -  but I was worried they would disappear)

Bottling Summer

 

This year I am trying elderflower cordial. I have made elderflower champagne before but this is a lot faster and less involved.  It captures the essence of the flower, without making a song and dance of it.  Currently picking gooseberries which are enhanced by a good glug of this.

Playing Catchup

 

It is such a busy time of the growing year that I have been neglecting my blog. Here are a couple of pictures of recent landmark events. Firstly there are six surviving cygnets from this year's brood on the pond.  And secondly we are harvesting asparagus in quantity (well enough for 2) from the sole surviving asparagus plant at the allotment. 

Picking Up At The Plot

 I have been indulging my newfound interest in flowering plants and particularly wildflowers recently. Despite appearances I have been keeping up with the production of edibles too.  To bring the record up to date, here is a statement of the current state of play.

I went for alliums in a bigger way this year growing autumn and spring planted garlic as well as shallots and onions from seed. These were sown indoors in February .  The garlic has emerged and shallot and onion have been planted out on site yesterday and today. 

Broad beans sown in cells and planted out a month ago are now sitting pretty at the plot. 

Peas on the other hand have refused to be cajoled into germinating early. As a last resort I have started them sprouting in a jam jar in the kitchen and only "sown" them in cells after germination and exporting them to the greenhouse and then the plot.

Still on legumes I have sown 5 varieties of Dwarf French Bean into deep cells in the hope that the improved night temperatures will help them get started.

The greenhouse has been stuffed full each night with the paraffin heater lit on any night when the threat of frost is flagged up by the weatherman.  The main beneficiaries are flowers: Cosmos, Marigold, Lobelia, but also tomato, cucumber and pepper 

Tomatoes and Cucumber

Pepper Hungarian Hot Wax

I have attempted direct sowing at the allotment but tend to hedge my bets by using up remnant seed supplies (open packets from last year or out of date ones).  This way I don't get upset when they fail - although failure is also more likely as a result!  Parsnip, carrot, Swish chard have been experimented with in this way - and have all been resown recently..

Good Friday is a traditional potato planting day.  Easter Saturday and Sunday saw me getting all but the maincrop Rooster in. 

Potatoes in waiting

The patch allocated to potatoes in my rotational plan still had "spring" cabbages at one end and leeks at the other.  Now that's what I call bad planning! The leeks are going into the cookpot.

The ground for runner beans, celery and celeriac has been thoroughly prepped with plenty of buried organic matter.  The celery and celeriac have been growing on at home

Celery and Celeriac  - Can you tell which is which?

 but the runner beans have yet to be sown.  The courgettes squashes and sweetcorn haven't been sown either yet, but I have recently prepared a bed for them too.  My method is to bag all my weeds and trimmings in old black lined compost bags and leave them for a year or two to rot down in the hope that after another year buried underground any weed seeds will not be viable.  This keeps all the nutrients recycled on the site - all except the edible part of any crops.  

Weed suppression is something I take very seriously.  The best method is to have a crop growing but failing that deployment of weed suppressant fabric in the early part of the growing season saves hours of repetitive weeding.  As the sowing season progresses so the aesthetically unpleasing fabric gets rolled back. 

Brassicas tend to be at their best late in the growing year. None more so than purple sprouting broccoli which is currently in full production mode. 

 One again my lack of planning means the row of PSB plants is right in the middle of this year's carrot patch (under the fine mesh).  The PSB needs nets to keep the pigeons off while the carrots need fine netting to keep the carrot root fly off. so it is a bit of a logistic nightmare to cater for them both simultaneously.  As the early carrot sowing show no sign of germination yet perhaps there is no imminent prospect of running out of space just yet - the main crop carrots can wait until the PSB harvesting season is over.

This years brassicas and leeks are coming on at home in readiness for planting out. It iis going to be busy for the next month or two!

Early season brassicas

Leeks